


with urgency but not with haste

by Sanwall



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 07:36:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanwall/pseuds/Sanwall
Summary: Aziraphale moves to the South Downs and gets bees, and Crowley gets into one of his moods.





	with urgency but not with haste

Before the end times, if you had asked Aziraphale where he would see himself in five years, he would have said, God willing, I'll still be in my bookshop in Soho, looking forward to salmon nigiri for dinner.

After the end times, when the rest of Aziraphale's life stretched out before him, he found himself walking around the bookshop, touching things as if to check that they were corporeal - it was all the same, and still different from before. Even if you miracled the stain away, Aziraphale _knew_ it had been there.

"Angel, you're pacing," Crowley said. Crowley was the same, thank Heav- thank Earth, and he'd taken up lounging around the bookshop a great deal more often than before, which Aziraphale didn't mind in the least, but he didn't tell him that.  
  
"I'm not pacing," Aziraphale said absently and thumbed a first edition of Paradise Lost - Aziraphale had been the one to suggest to Milton that he split the second edition into two books (mostly due to paper costs). Crowley had submitted notes.1

"You're pacing," Crowley insisted and swirled the glass of wine in his hand. "What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing," Aziraphale said, and then he sighed. "I suppose I could do with a change of scenery."

"How d’you mean?" Crowley asked, in that unbothered way Aziraphale envied. "We could take a stroll through St. James Park, if you want."

"Not that kind of a change of scenery," Aziraphale said with a flustered gesture. "A bigger change, a - well, I wouldn't say permanent, nothing's permanent, of course, but a more-- lasting change."

Crowley set the glass of wine aside. "What are you saying, Aziraphale?" he said, and behind the sunglasses, Aziraphale could sense Crowley’s eyes tracking him intently.

"I'm saying I think I want to move out of London for a bit."

* * *

The cottage in the South Downs was situated not far from the Devil's Humps, which wasn't on purpose but did give Aziraphale a good chuckle nevertheless. He remembered these rolling hills and the people buried beneath the mounds from centuries ago, when he'd traversed them clad in a damp and heavy set of armour with an itch on his lower back that he just couldn't reach. The chainmail had been in the way.

He brought with him books - his favourites, now safe from any and all dreaded customers - and rearranged them lovingly into a perfect system that broke down after a fortnight.

Still, it was a good fortnight, in which he knew exactly where everything was.

He'd expected Crowley to call, ask how he was settling in. He got into these moods sometimes, and Aziraphale had seen one of them come over Crowley as he prepared to move, but they never lasted long. As it turned out, it was Aziraphale who picked up the phone to call him, because he needed information.

"Why the He-- why on Earth would I know anything about keeping _beesssss?"_ Crowley said over the line. Aziraphale rolled his eyes and settled deeper into the armchair.

"I know you're a deft hand at these things. I've been to your flat."

"Keeping plants is a lot different than keeping bees!"

"Is it?" Aziraphale said. "I don't see how."

Crowley muttered something under his breath that Aziraphale couldn't make out. Then he said, "Don't do anything stupid until I get there."

The words just came to him unbidden, and Aziraphale smiled as he said, "How could I? You're bringing all the stupid with you."

* * *

"I know I told you how to use Google," Crowley said as he shouldered his way inside the cottage without knocking. "You could bloody well google beekeeping instead of asking me!"

Aziraphale set down his tea and beamed at him. "Crowley, welcome!" he said and watched as Crowley set down a large suitcase on the floor and hefted a smaller one up on Aziraphale's kitchen table. "Make yourself at home."

"But since you don't seem to be able to use a computer," Crowley continued, as if he hadn't heard him, and snapped the suitcase open, "I've brought you books about it."

"Oh dear," Aziraphale said as several tomes on apiculture spilled out on the kitchen table. "Well, I'm sure I could do it myself, given enough time to read up on it, but I'd be grateful for any help in setting things up."

"I'm sure you would," Crowley said and pushed up his sunglasses. "But this cottage better have a spare bed if you want me to stay. I've gotten used to a good night's sleep."

"Not so much a spare as it's got the one," Aziraphale said and opened one of the books. It was illustrated. "But if I fall asleep, I tend to do it in the armchair. You're welcome to use the bed."

* * *

After some research, Crowley and Aziraphale installed a row of top-bar hives and got to it. Crowley's Bentley invited some comment from the apiarist who provided them the colony, but Aziraphale was too preoccupied getting acquainted with the bees to notice it.

Crowley dutifully dressed in the protective suit whenever he had business in the apiary, but Aziraphale found that he and the bees got along well, in a You don't sting me and I don't withhold sugar-type situation. It worked for them.

"Wouldn't it be nicer if they pollinated flowers?" Crowley asked, from a safe distance, while Aziraphale set out the sugar syrup.

"It's early spring," Aziraphale replied and gently huffed at a bee that got just a little too close to his left nostril. "Not enough flowers to go around yet."

He hadn't expected that to set Crowley off, but he found him two days later elbow-deep in fertile soil with different packets of seeds spread out around him. Aziraphale thought it suited him, this kind of dirty work.

"Figured I'd help them along," Crowley said, sunglasses sliding down his nose so a hint of yellow peeked out over the rim. "This side of the house gets a lot of sun, I bet you some of these will bloom twice a summer."

* * *

It was an overcast day when Aziraphale returned from one of his grocery store trips and saw yellow winking at him by the southernmost padstone. The daffodils had bloomed.

 _"I wandered lonely as a cloud,"_ Aziraphale mumbled to himself as he climbed up the steps to the porch, hefting the grocery bags into a better position. _"That floats on high o'er vales and hills."_ 2]

"What's that?" Crowley called. He was spread out on the porch bench like he was trying to catch some sun, despite the clouds. The top buttons on his flannel shirt were unbuttoned, and the stains on his trouser knees seemed to suggest he'd been out in the garden again, perhaps tending to the roots, which he insisted would ensure that Aziraphale would never have to buy carrots again.

"Nothing, dear," Aziraphale said with a smile and tried to open the door with his elbow.

"Don't call me that," Crowley said. Aziraphale's elbow slipped off the doorknob.

"Whyever not?" Aziraphale asked, astonished. The dark of Crowley's glasses was impenetrable.

"I don't have to tell you why," he said irritably and stood up as if to slink down the stairs and back to the garden. Aziraphale caught him by the arm before he could though, and in doing so dropped the bags.

"The groceries!" Crowley squeaked and looked down at the fruit spilling out over the boards together with a bottle of wine (miraculously intact, of course) and a carton of eggs (which Aziraphale didn't bother with).

"Damn the groceries," Aziraphale said solemnly and pulled Crowley closer. "You are dear to me, Crowley, and I'll need a good reason not to call you as such."

"Don't--" Crowley said and then, with a sharp inhale, grew silent.

An aching feeling took root in Aziraphale's chest. He feared he'd done something bad, and that was, well, for an angel, quite unbearable. "Crowley," he started.

"You moved away from me," Crowley said.

"Not away from you!" Aziraphale said. "Away from the bookshop, away from London, yes, but not away from you. If six thousand years didn't make me tired of you, I doubt I'll ever grow tired of you!"

"Well, what a relief to hear you're not tired of me yet!" Crowley spat. Aziraphale would have recoiled, if he hadn't been so focused on the dejected tilt of Crowley's shoulders.

"If you thought I didn't like you anymore," Aziraphale said and loosened his grip on Crowley's arm even if he didn't remove his hand, "who did you think you were punishing by coming here? Me or you?"

Crowley's head snapped up, and Aziraphale thought he could read something sheepish in his expression, hidden though as it was behind reflective lenses.

"Believe it or not, angel, I'm mostly here for my own selfish interests. Punishment optional."

"I don't see what's so selfish about coming to help someone you thought didn't like you," Aziraphale said sensibly. "I'd even call it selfless."

"Rub salt in the wound, won't you?" Crowley retorted venomously, but Aziraphale noted he hadn't removed his arm either. "No, Aziraphale, I came here selfishly. Guess I'm a glutton for punishment."

"Is it so hard for you, to be with me?" Aziraphale said, trying for level. He wasn't quite sure he managed.

"Hard for m-- Aziraphale," Crowley said, almost pleadingly. "Don't make me say it."

Aziraphale began to wonder, for the first time, if they weren't having two parallel conversations, their lines in one plane but never intersecting or touching each other at any point. "Say what?"

Crowley turned away sharply, but didn't step off the porch. He just looked out at the garden.

"I love you," he said, eyes trained on the blackberry bushes. "And it's a damn inconvenient thing, to love, when you're someone like me."

"Oh," Aziraphale said and stepped closer, even if he didn't dare put his hand back on Crowley's arm. "Oh! Well, I love you, too."

Crowley made dismissive sound. "You're an angel, you love everything."

"Not everything! Not - I don't love radishes, for a start," Aziraphale hastened to say, with an emphatic gesture. "I don't love that we still get those one-time use wooden chopsticks with every sushi delivery order. I don't love it when you drive and take the turns too fast-- I don't love that you slept through most of the nineteenth century. I don't love that I feel hopelessly lonely without you."

During this cascade of words, Crowley slowly turned back towards Aziraphale. Aziraphale took a deep breath and concluded, "Inconvenient might be a good word for it. I don't think an angel is supposed to love a demon quite like this, Crowley."

Crowley made a sound again. It sounded strangled.

"So--for how long?" he said. It sounded like it hadn't been quite what he meant to say.

Aziraphale shrugged and thought of Rome and oysters. "Oh, probably longer than I care to admit. Though I only knew it for certain - well, it's getting on to be seventy years now, isn't it? My, how time flies."

"Seventy-- and you never thought to tell me!" Crowley said, and he'd hardened from the dejection to outright upset, which in some ways was better.

"Well, I couldn't-- and besides, I thought you knew!" Aziraphale said and threw his hands out. "Why, you said it yourself! Angels love everything!"

"Not-- not quite like this, though?" Crowley said. If Aziraphale hadn't known him for six thousand years, he would've thought he sounded shy. Perhaps hopeful.

"No," Aziraphale said and moved even closer. "Not quite like this.

Crowley exhaled shudderingly as he took a small step closer to Aziraphale, who met him halfway.  
  
Marvellous things, bodies, Aziraphale thought. Good for expressing things you lacked the words for. He could have done without his heart doing its best to hammer out of his chest just then, though.3]  
"If you'll permit me," Aziraphale said and leaned in to kiss Crowley on the mouth.

Crowley permitted him; in fact he encouraged him. He tilted his head just so, and when their lips touched, Aziraphale could sense Crowley's body molding itself into the kiss, as if he threatened to melt. He found himself grasping Crowley's neck and face, to keep him upright and steady, leaving Crowley's hands to wind themselves into the fabric of his merino wool cardigan.

Aziraphale was no stranger to love in all its forms, but this-- this had an undercurrent of urgency that was unfamiliar. How could he make Crowley understand that in so many ways, after Armageddon, it was only inertia that had kept Aziraphale from this? When millennia of fear for being found out had molded him into a pattern of behaviour that did not permit expressions like these?

He touched his tongue to Crowley's lower lip and Crowley's mouth fell open under his, a promise of heat. Aziraphale felt his body respond to that promise, and he pulled Crowley even closer. That unsettled the balance between them, and they stumbled backwards together. Crowley tasted of earth and salt, like a dark roast coffee laced with sal ammoniac, and the kiss stung Aziraphale's lips like fresh ginger.

Aziraphale let go of Crowley to reach behind himself and pull the door open, and by sheer momentum, they stumbled inside too, and kept on kissing each other by the kitchen counter for an indeterminate amount of time. For all Aziraphale knew, galaxies were born and galaxies died while they kissed.

"My dear boy," Aziraphale said then, after sparing a thought for the deceased galaxies, and settled back on his heels. "I'm not sure my neck can take much more of this."

"Your neck?" Crowley repeated, a bit vacantly, as he was trying to chase Aziraphale's mouth. Aziraphale tried not to feel too pleased about it.

"Yes, you're quite tall," Aziraphale murmured, finding himself transfixed by the sheen of Crowley's mouth.

"Can't have that, can we," Crowley said, somewhat nonsensically, but Aziraphale wasn't about to complain when Crowley tugged him into the bedroom - in effect, Crowley's bedroom - and pulled them both down on the bed.

Aziraphale was enveloped by Crowley's scent hiding in the bedsheets, warm and sharp like burning fir wood. He breathed in deeply, and then rolled them over so he had Crowley beneath him and could straddle his hips easily.

"Oh, is this how you want to play it?" Crowley said with a grin that, inexplicably, reminded Aziraphale of his reptilian origins, and hefted himself up on his elbows.

"Yes," Aziraphale replied and reached down to carefully pull off Crowley's sunglasses. Just as carefully, he set them aside.

Crowley blinked, and Aziraphale allowed himself a moment to just look at him. He watched as Crowley looked down into the space between them, in a bashful sweep of eyelashes.

"They're strange, I know," he said and shifted underneath Aziraphale. An uncharitable person would have called it wriggling. "I always thought, _werrll,_ got to have something to show I'm not-- but the truth is, I can change anything about my appearance except the eyes. Windows to the soul, or something."

"I think they're beautiful," Aziraphale said and ran a thumb across Crowley's sharp jaw, urging him to tilt his chin up and look him in the eye.

Crowley did, and Aziraphale smiled. Crowley didn't look away, not while they undressed each other and while Aziraphale kissed a pattern down his body and back up again. He couldn't stand to stay away from Crowley's mouth for long; the fabled drink of the Greek pantheon came to mind, from the compound of nek, meaning death, and tar, meaning the ability to overcome. Maudlin, perhaps, but Aziraphale figured he'd earned the right to be.

Crowley kept looking at him throughout it all, with a faint expression of surprise, like he wasn't quite sure this was actually happening. Aziraphale felt much the same, and so he tried to convince the both of them, as enthusiastically as he could.

If Crowley had touched him like this before, trailing fingers up Aziraphale's thigh or burying them in the curls at the back of his head, Aziraphale would have considered it a temptation. But now, Aziraphale was beyond temptation and Crowley was beyond tempting. It felt more like adoration, Aziraphale thought as he kissed Crowley's clavicle, and that was mutual.

In many ways, how they came together was artless; touching just for touching's sake, and then building, as these things do, towards a climax that wasn't so much overwhelming as it was a long time coming. Crowley made a noise, just one, and wound his long legs around Aziraphale, who gasped into the juncture between Crowley's neck and shoulder.  
Aziraphale settled down across Crowley with an exhale that seemed to go on forever.

"Angels don't love quite like this, eh?" Crowley said and smoothed his hand down Aziraphale's back, following the shape of his wing if it had been folded down and flat.  
  
"Don't gloat," Aziraphale admonished and kissed the side of Crowley's neck. "It's not a good look on you."4  
"I would never!"5 Crowley said, faux-earnest, and Aziraphale laughed. He shifted off Crowley, but only halfway, because their legs didn't untangle and he left his arm slung across Crowley's narrow chest.

Aziraphale wondered if they would grow into each other, like the elm and birch in the backyard that had somehow become intertwined during the years, making it difficult to spot where one tree began and the other ended.

"The groceries are still lying on the porch," Crowley said, and strained his neck to look up at the door.

"Not anymore," Aziraphale said. As miracles went, healing broken eggs wasn't that noteworthy, but Aziraphale could sympathise with Crowley's need for things to be orderly. He felt Crowley smile.

Strangely and suddenly, Aziraphale felt sleepy. He pulled Crowley a little closer and thought that it was possible they had already grown hopelessly intertwined.

This wasn't going to be the rest of Aziraphale's life - he and Crowley weren't going to live in this cottage forever after. Nothing was permanent, but as Crowley settled into him, turned his face so he could press his lips against Aziraphale's temple, Aziraphale thought this was something that would last.

**Author's Note:**

> 1 "If thou hath Satan himself to tempt Adam and Eve, his Character feeleth somewhat too Tragic. The Buggre damn welle chose to Fall, even if reigning in Hell is not All that it is cut out to Be." 
> 
> 2 Aziraphale had always appreciated Wordsworth more for his vim and vigour than his poetry; but turns out that three hundred years later, it was his poems that stayed with Aziraphale and not the drunken ramblings about the Church of England that had gotten both of them kicked out of a coffee house. 
> 
> 3 It wasn't that Aziraphale needed to, for instance, sleep or eat. But his body, as such, didn't know he didn't need those things and so it was shaped after those specifications anyway. With having a body came things that weren't exactly inherent to Aziraphale, but perhaps inherent to Aziraphale's body. Like, say, carnal desire.  
>   
> 4 It was a good look on him. Angels are capable of lying, if it's the service of good (in this case, the good of knocking Crowley down a peg).
> 
> 5 It is par for the course, for a demon to lie. Crowley was not very good at it.  
>   
> Many thanks to [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant) for betareading!  
> You can find me on tumblr @trailsofpaper, which is, for the time being, almost exclusively a good omens blog


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